


The Last Reylo

by Scoby



Series: Reylo around Europe [2]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - 2040s, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Antis are Sith, Berlin (City), Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, F/M, Finn is TLJ Reylo, Hacker Kylo Ren, Hacker Rey (Star Wars), Happy Ending, I Blame Tumblr, Meta, Order 66, Rey is TFA Reylo, Reylos are Jedi, Rose is TROS Reylo, THIGH GRAB, Wordcount: 5.000-10.000, mysteriously wiped out all Reylo accounts on Tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:07:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27223219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scoby/pseuds/Scoby
Summary: It is autumn 2049 when Freya first sees Star Wars Sequel Trilogy and becomes a Reylo shipper straight from TFA. But on Tumblr, she cannot find anyone else who shares her views. What has happened to all the Reylos of 2010s?Tracks lead Freya to @EOT - a mysterious hacker behind it all. But turns out that she cannot face him without working together with a ruthless Anti, @ReyloKiller.-----@EOT:You’re nothing. A hacker girl is no match for the power in me. I am all the Antis@FreyaOfLight:And IShe pasted in her command window the line of code that he had just used against them.@FreyaOfLight:am all the ReylosShe pressed enter, and her screen turned blank.
Relationships: Poe Dameron & Finn & Rey & Rose Tico, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: Reylo around Europe [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1927789
Comments: 27
Kudos: 19
Collections: Ijustfellintothissendhelp





	1. Shipping at first sight

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [enemies-to-lovers](http://www.archiveofourown.org/works/22316659/chapters/53304883), I wanted a Tumblr adventure of my own :)

Freya’s friends had always considered her a bit odd. So when she linked the event in their group chat and begged them to come with her, they only thought of it as a natural continuation to her weird ideas.

 **@PhoeDammit** : Seriously? 2010s theme weekend at Kino Kreutzberg? Who’s going besides us? Some grannies?

 **@FreyaOfLight** : Cmon, it'll be fun! 2010s movies the whole weekend.

 **@FreyaOfLight** : And on Sunday, there'll be brunch and Star Wars Sequel Trilogy marathon

 **@RoseyPosey** : Is that some 2010s SciFi? Akward CGI and all?

 **@FreyaOfLight** : You have to approach it as an epoque experience. We’ll have fun dressing up for the era and eat all we can. Let’s go, pleeease!

 **@FN-2187** : I could come for the brunch. Look at the menu: miso-flavoured quinoa, pulled oats, kale chips, sweet potato fries, avocado toast and kombucha fountain and all. It's really all the epoque stuff

 **@FreyaOfLight** : Thanks, Finnick, I knew I could count on you! Phoe? Roza?

 **@RoseyPosey** : ok

 **@PhoeDammit** : k

 **@FreyaOfLight** : Yeeeeey, see you on Sunday!

* * *

Freya could not get enough pictures when they all gathered on Sunday morning in their costumes. Phoe was wearing a flannel shirt and too short jeans that revealed a pair of happy socks in derby shoes. He had even let his beard grow as much as it had done during the week.

Finnick wore curiously tight sweatpants with sneakers. The print of his T-shirt referred to single-gear bikes and single-source coffee in a way that none of them understood. He had topped everything with a thin wool cap.

Roza was in an adorable orange dress with an open back covered by a labyrinth of straps, uneven hem flowing around her knees. The top half of her hair was up in a bun, and her earrings were the largest seashells they had ever seen.

Freya herself had used half an hour on getting her hair into a French braid that trailed from her brow along the side of her head, all the way down to her neck on the opposite side. She wore stone washed, high waisted jeans with a white crop top. And from the thrift store, she had found something that the cashier called a real treasure: a pair of white Converse.

“Think that people really used to dress like this every day”, Freya said as she turned her phone around to take a few panoramic pictures of the whole crowd gathered at the movie theatre. “This must look exactly like a brunch event in Kreutzberg thirty years ago.”

“Yeah, I’m sure”, Finnick said. “Do you still need pictures of my hat or can I take it off now?”

“One more. Smile!”

Freya put her phone away after the last shot and they all focused on helping themselves to the brunch buffet and eating the first round before the first movie.

* * *

“I’m sure they’re going to fall in love”, Freya said with dreamy eyes as they returned to the buffet area after The Force Awakens.

“Eh, who?” Roza asked, confused.

“Rey and Kylo Ren, isn’t it obvious?”

“What? But they’re enemies!” Finnick looked even more confused.

“Didn’t you see that interrogation scene? Or how they looked at each other in the end?”

“After she smashed his face open?” Phoe stared at Freya like she had just used the most ridiculous argument possible.

“I’m talking about the expression in his eyes at that moment. Don’t you really see where this is going?”

But her friends shrugged and focused on helping themselves to another round of food.

* * *

“Ah, now I see what you mean!” Finnick bumped Freya’s shoulder excitedly after The Last Jedi.

“With what?” Phoe asked.

“With the romance!” Freya almost yelled. How could Phoe possibly be this dumb?

“Errr, what romance? Are you talking about Rey and Kylo Ren again?” Roza’s suspicion did not seem to have gone anywhere.

“Of course”, Finnick said. “Don’t tell me you totally ignored the hand touch and the elevator scene. And all that happened after that!”

“Well, they were obviously both trying to turn each other to their own side. It’s just natural to get a little close in that kind of process", Roza reasoned. "But they could as well be becoming friends or something. Anyway, that doesn’t matter anymore since they separated in the end.”

“Just believe us, they’re going to get together in the last episode”, Freya insisted.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll believe it when I see it, _explicitly_ ”, Phoe said. “But speaking of seeing, did you _see_ that massive ship splitting in two!? I mean, even now it looked _good_. Just think how it looked like for those people in 2017.”

Roza was as excited as Phoe about the surprisingly good visual effects, so the whole conversation revolved around those until it was time to head back for the final movie.

* * *

“Oh, you guys were right all along!” Roza's eyes were all sparkles after The Rise of Skywalker.

“I told you so.” Freya smiled at the excitement that Roza finally shared with her.

“Are you now thinking they’re a couple just because of that kiss right before he died?" Phoe glared at Roza. "What if they just put it there because they needed to have a kiss in the movie? And who knows if it was even romantic? It might as well be a friendly thank you kiss after all they’d been through. You know, like sister and brother might kiss like that.”

"Eww... Is _that_ what you do with _your_ sister?" Finnick frowned.

"Well, no, but it's a movie, you see. Everything's supposed to be a bit exaggerated."

Phoe would probably remain utterly impossible to convince, so the others stopped paying attention to him and indulged themselves in a final round of food and discussion about every detail of the romance throughout the trilogy.

* * *

At home, still excited, Freya could not resist an urge to open Tumblr and type #TheForceAwakens in the search bar. She did not expect to see much. She was not sure if Tumblr had even existed thirty years ago. But if it had, she longed to know if others had experienced it the same way she had and how Finnick and Roza had also learned to see it in the end.

It turned out that Tumblr had indeed existed, and she found tons of posts about The Force Awakens. But what struck her was that all the posts concerned only the funny moments, space battles, technological details and the like. Apparently, nobody had posted anything about the romance that had been so obvious to her from the moment Kylo Ren made Rey pass out and swept her in his arms.

She did the same search for #TheLastJedi, expecting to see more sentimental content about this episode. Possibly, the people of 2010s had been similar to Finnick, only able to see the direction of the story when it was laid out in sufficiently obvious sexual undertones. But the result was the same. All the text, pictures and GIFs were funny, epic or technical – none romantic.

The same was true for #TheRiseOfSkywalker. Apart from one single GIF of Rey repeatedly kissing Ben Solo. She eyed the few hashtags under it. One of them caught her attention: #reilo. She opened the blog by @LucaInTheSky who had posted it. That was the only post in the whole blog. In the end of the thread, she found a comment that made her shiver, posted last year by @ReyloKiller:

_Your game is over. Your ship has sunk. And when I block you, I’ll have blocked the last Reylo._

To that, @LucaInTheSky had posted a defiant response:

_Amazing. Every word of what you just wrote was wrong. This is a new beginning. Our ship is about to rise afloat again. And I will not be the last Reylo._

After that, nothing. @LucaInTheSky’s account was still existing, so apparently the blocking threat had not realised. But still, he had been on hiatus since 2019, apart from that one response. Curious, Freya took a screenshot and sent a DM request before opening @ReyloKiller’s blog.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you don't know Berlin, Kreutzberg is a hipster neighbourhood. Regardless of how it will evolve in thirty years, it will always be the right place for a 2010s brunch event


	2. The fate of the Reylos

@ReyloKiller's blog was full of detailed meta about how Kylo Ren had abused Rey throughout the trilogy, accusations at Disney for letting their movies even hint at a direction of a romance between them, and threats that everyone who shipped them would themselves deserve to be raped.

These points were emphasized with pictures of Rey being badass here and there, holding a lightsaber for the first time, lifting a barricade of rocks without touching, healing a serpent, and other shots that Freya had loved, too. But using those to validate that the whole romance was unethical seemed to her to completely miss the point.

Most of the comments shared the same opinions, though. But some were critical, demanding that everyone had the right to ship fictional characters as they wished without a need to submit to somebody's supposed moral superiority. To those, @ReyloKiller had responded as grimly as to @LucaInTheSky, threatening to block anyone who posted anything as undermining to Rey’s character as even implying that Kylo Ren could deserve a relationship with her.

"Asshole", Freya muttered through her teeth as she closed the disgusting blog. She opened her chat with Finnick and sent him her screenshot of @LucaInTheSky's GIF and its hashtags.

 **@FreyaOfLight** : What do you think #reilo can mean?

 **@FN-2187** : Lol, sounds like Rey and Kylo, but with a weird typo

 **@FreyaOfLight** : What do you think people called this ship 30 yrs ago?

 **@FN-2187** : At least I’d much rather type it Reylo than Reilo

 **@FreyaOfLight** : Yeah, that much is obvious

 **@FreyaOfLight** : I’m hacking in

 **@FN-2187** : To Tumblr? Are you crazy?

 **@FN-2187** : Their servers must be all encrypted and behind massive shields. What if you'll have to put down your own to breach those? That's too dangerous

 **@FreyaOfLight** : Yeah, and I’m doing it. I went through the hashtags of all the three movies. There are zero shipping posts about Rey and Kylo, just one single post with the kiss. This can’t be the whole truth

 **@FN-2187** is typing…

Freya blocked Finnick before he had time to finish his counter-argument. When she was done, she would unblock him and they would chat again. For now, she had more important things on her mind and he would only distract her.

Finnick had been protective of Freya like a little sister since the moment they met in their first programming class at the university. Expecting for some reason that she would be in trouble with the assignments, he had sat next to her and kept making comments about her code and pointing out potential bugs up to the point of roasting Freya’s nerves.

After she told him promptly to stop holding her hand, they started to get along well. Finnick had to accept that more often than not, Freya was faster with finishing the assignments and had to help him with fixing his own bugs. And soon, he found another outlet for his compulsion to fix others’ code, when Phoe enrolled to the same class a few weeks late and struggled to catch up.

And in the middle of the semester, Finnick met with Roza in a computer architecture class. They had opened a server and reconfigured the modules according to the assignment, when Roza accidentally turned on the machine when Finnick’s hand was still inside. His whole arm went numb for hours. Roza wanted to apologize by cooking a dinner, which he accepted with the condition that he could bring Freya and Phoe. From then onwards, the four of them had been inseparable.

Nowadays, Freya had to give Finnick credit for, most of the time, so considerately holding back his pressing instinct to protect her. Still, it kept leaking to the surface in situations like this one. She heard her phone buzzing somewhere deep inside her bag. Apparently, Finnick was already going for text messages after she blocked their chat. Freya could respond to him later.

She got to work first by turning on a brute-force password guessing algorithm. It was very low probability to get through using it, but it could crunch in the background, guessing a hundred username-password combinations a second, while she worked through other avenues. With luck, it just might guess an admin password.

Once, she had made it to the servers of a large hospital chain using the same algorithm. And the password it had eventually guessed had been so embarrassingly simple that she had wanted to post it to the whole world as a warning example, along with screenshots showing the amount of life-sustaining equipment and patient data under her control.

But she never bragged about where she cracked herself into, and never did any real damage. Not even when she sliced open the servers of a bank and browsed the accounts of millionaires who would not even notice if a few thousands would quietly disappear. She earned enough from her job to live how she wanted, and hacking was just a hobby to prove to herself what she could do.

Now, she approached her prey in her usual manner, first circulating around it, throwing simple commands to bypass the shields. She would be disappointed if Tumblr would surrender this easily, but it was part of the game: finding the easiest possible way to break in. As she expected, though, none of the simple commands worked. This might yet take the whole night.

Freya took a break to brew coffee and toyed in her mind between which of the heavy tricks on her sleeve she would pull on first. When she had decided and sat back down by her computer, she noticed that @LucaInTheSky had accepted her DM request, though only to post:

 **@LucaInTheSky** : Go away

Why had he accepted if he did not want to chat with her?

 **@FreyaOfLight** : I need your help

She went to her kitchen again, poured all the freshly dripped coffee into a large mug and came back, only to see no answer.

 **@FreyaOfLight** : You’re the only one who posted that kiss, or any other content about them. I need to understand. It can’t be that there are no others

 **@LucaInTheSky** : It’s time for the Reylos to end

 **@FreyaOfLight** : Reylos? With y? Did you make that typo in your post on purpose?

 **@LucaInTheSky** : I sensed the Antis were getting stronger and unpredictable. And it seemed like there was something behind them all, something more hostile and ruthless, ready for a lot more than just trolling. I knew that #reylo would not be safe for long

 **@FreyaOfLight** : And that saved you! What happened to the others?

 **@LucaInTheSky** : At the height of their powers, Reylos fueled the hate of the Antis. They got too involved in the wars, too defensive about their ship. The more Antis gave them shit, the more they posted, sometimes cross-tagging to really get it on their faces. That’s why they got wiped out

 **@FreyaOfLight** : How did it happen?

 **@LucaInTheSky** : Nobody knows exactly

 **@FreyaOfLight** : I’ll find out

 **@LucaInTheSky** : What?

 **@FreyaOfLight** : I can hack in. If people have had their accounts blocked just because of shipping a pairing that others disagree with, they deserve justice

 **@LucaInTheSky** : This is not going to go the way you think

Freya’s cursor hovered above the blocking button. But @LucaInTheSky did nothing to insist, so she just hid the chat window and focused back on her task.

Freya was delighted to notice that Tumblr used all the state of the art protection but nothing more advanced than that. She needed just the right amount of effort to breach in and hack the encryption. It was difficult enough to raise her intrigue but not so hard that it would have demanded another cup of coffee. In an hour or so, she had Tumblr’s archives of deleted posts in front of her.

That was when a new world of fascination opened to her.

There were tons of posts tagged #Reylo, commented by both like-minded fans and hostile Antis. She found terabytes of beautiful fanart, lyrical GIFs as well as emotional, thirsty, hilarious and passionate discussion about the pairing that she loved so much and had been sure that there must be others who felt it too. She lost the track of time as she got carried away with the abundance of enchanting content.

When she opened the blogs that had used #Reylo, though, she found all of them having the same final comment on their final post:

_Your account is blocked. #Code66_

The post was not from maintenance, though, but from user @EOT. That account was even more heavily protected than the rest of the servers. Apparently, this user was a hacker who had set up extra shields around their own account to hide their dirty work. Probably even the maintenance had never noticed what @EOT had been up to.

Freya brewed herself another cup of coffee and set out to crack the mysterious account.

But no safe tricks seemed to work. This was going to the direction Finnick had feared: she would have to put down her own shields and make a rougher approach. She heard Finnick’s warnings buzz around in her head – the same warnings she kept telling her co-workers.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Yes, it would be reckless to put herself in danger like this. But she would make it worth it.

Her fingers marched resolutely on the keyboard as she typed in the commands to put down all protection of her own computer. Then, she initiated the bridging.

It was a desperate move that even criminals avoided. With no shields, it was possible to slice in almost anywhere, but there was little control about where the bridge ended up, as it was easily misled if there were others connected to the same server with limited shielding. And if reaching the desired target, it was very easy to get caught without the shell of personal data protection.

After entering the command, Freya’s screen blinked and she prayed for the best. When the flicker finally stopped, her heart took a leap in her chest.

She had made it on somebody else’s computer. There was a different desktop in front of her, with a starry sky as a background and an array of unfamiliar folders in a neat order. And she knew that, whoever it was, had a similar access to hers.

She heard Finnick's voice in her head again. He would tell her to back off right away, put her own shields back up and forget about @EOT. But Finnick did not understand.

Freya had no idea how much time she would have. She guessed the other hacker could severe the connection at any time. But since it was not happening, chances were that this person was cramming through the contents of her own computer in search of material for blackmailing or identify theft. The best way to keep herself safe would be to do the same and thus have her own weapon if being attacked afterwards.

She opened Tumblr first, curious to see if she had already hit her mark. But when the site signed her in with the remembered password, she did not find herself in the profile of @EOT. Instead, this profile was @ReyloKiller.


	3. The bridge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My husband tried to beta the hacking sequences for me, but at this point, he gave up and said that there's no way these can be made even remotely realistic. So I declare that this fic has officially turned into a hacking fairy tale

Freya could only think of one explanation: both she and @ReyloKiller had been hacked into Tumblr’s servers without their own shields at the same time, and the code had bridged their computers to each other instead of what they had been looking for.

Or what had @ReyloKiller been looking for from the server?

Then she remembered how @LucaInTheSky’s account was still up despite the threat to block it. Chances were that @ReyloKiller had been looking for @EOT, too – not to destroy the account but to take advantage of its powers. Freya set out to find out more.

She dug first into whatever documents she could find on the computer with maximum amount of personal data. It turned out that the hacker behind @ReyloKiller was Kai Lorentz, born 13th September 2018, living on the other side of Berlin, no spouse, no kids, working as the head of cyber security for a large public procurement consultancy.

The title sounded quite senior for his age, but considering what they were both doing at the moment, Freya was not surprised. Herself, she had been recruited straight out of university as a junior developer in a mid-sized software house. However, her job description had quickly changed when the management noticed how easily she could spot all the security threats in both their products and internal systems.

She copied on a piece of paper enough information to steal Kai’s identity in case he would threaten her with the same. Next up would be to find material to protect herself from blackmailing. Freya used his password vault to open a family cloud. What she found there made her jaw drop and heart wrench:

Kai’s parents were obvious Reylo shippers.

The cloud had a long timeline of photos, reaching back to late 2015, which apparently was when his parents met. The first pictures were of them in The Force Awakens premiere, dressed up as Kylo Ren and Rey and kissing. Could that be their first date?

Similar pictures followed from the premiere of The Last Jedi, including a short video clip right before it where they explained to their friends how excited they were to see how their favourite pairing would evolve in this episode. They had been just like Freya, already fascinated by Reylo based on The Force Awakens alone.

For the premiere of The Rise Of Skywalker, they had switched their costumes to Han and Leia and taken little Kai with them. He was an adorable toddler with huge brown eyes and fluffy black hair. How was it possible that he had grown to be @ReyloKiller?

Throughout the years, there were plenty of pictures of their everyday life and a little more of special occasions like birthdays and holidays. But over time, pictures of Kai became rarer, and he seemed to avoid looking at the camera.

If she would have met him as a teenager, though, she would have had a crush immediately. In the rare shots where someone had managed to capture his eyes, they were full of depth and emotion, though always accompanied by dark circles under them. And she could hardly imagine more kissable lips. She found herself wondering how he looked like nowadays. Was he still as muscular – or perhaps more? Or was he spending too much time on the computer for that?

In any case, it seemed that he had more or less disappeared from his family’s life more than ten years ago, so Freya would have to dig somewhere else for more recent details. She was browsing the password vault, considering her next move, when Tumblr popped up a notification: DM request from @FreyaOfLight.

Of course, that was where Kai was, on her own account. If he was already going to start bargaining, Freya had not yet found much against him. But this might also turn out as a way to get a hint for where to search. She accepted the request.

 **@FreyaOfLight** : What are you doing on Tumblr servers?

 **@ReyloKiller** : You tell first

The DM window kept silent as both of them focused on browsing each other’s discs and clouds. Freya took several pictures of the screen with her phone as well as a few notes that could turn out useful, but nothing really explained what she most yearned to understand.

 **@ReyloKiller** : Why do you hate your parents?

 **@FreyaOfLight** : I don’t hate them

 **@ReyloKiller** : Then why all this?

 **@FreyaOfLight** : Why what?

 **@ReyloKiller** : Why have you disappeared from their life and rant all over Internet against everything they stood for?

 **@FreyaOfLight** : Let the past die. That’s the only way to become what you’re meant to be

 **@ReyloKiller** : And is this it? What you’re meant to be? Shaming people over their shipping choices?

 **@FreyaOfLight** : I’m protecting them

 **@ReyloKiller** : From fictional characters?

 **@FreyaOfLight** is typing…

While waiting for his response, Freya browsed Tumblr from his point of view. But the posts in the feed were so painfully hateful that she quickly longed for a new distraction. She typed @EOT in the search bar. It pointed to a blank account where even the DM request button was greyed. This user had hacked their profile impossible to approach.

But interestingly, there were more hits for @EOT in @ReyloKiller’s own DM history. He had exchanged plenty of messages concerning that account with others, whose profile names suggested that they were fellow Antis. From the bits and pieces, Freya started to puzzle together what had happened.

Kai had been looking for a way to hack into @EOT’s profile for a year already. He was obsessed about wiping out @LucaInTheSky and possible other remaining and emerging Reylos, but he had not found a way to block accounts by himself and needed help.

It seemed that @EOT enjoyed great respect among Antis, who believed that the acronym stood for Emperor of Tumblr. It looked like that account was pulling the strings behind everything the Antis posted. And this seemed to be still going on, even though the Antis were less active in public nowadays, as there were no Reylos to oppose.

Even though Kai’s own DM history went back only 15 years, it included conversations with some older Antis. According to those, already back in 2010s, @EOT had been the source of all the key arguments against Reylo. The supposed emperor himself had always been hidden back in the shadows, though, and his arguments were only spread in public by his loyalists.

Each new movie had fueled the Reylos, but the Anti community had stood their ground in preparation for their secret leader’s lethal move. On the last day of 2020, the anticipated moment finally happened: @EOT executed Code 66, which blocked the accounts of all the Reylos on Tumblr.

Freya’s hands tightened to fists as she thought about all the beauty and love she had seen on those accounts in the archives. And now those were lost to the world because of this ultimate source of malevolence. She gritted her teeth and swore that she would find @EOT and block… no, not just block… remove that account from Internet for good.

Kai had apparently been meticulous with composing his message or got distracted just like Freya, because his reply arrived only now:

 **@FreyaOfLight** : Are you trying to prove that you’re morally superior because you accept an abusive ship? Well you’ve proven something else. You’re still holding on to romanticising an unhealthy relationship. It’s about time you let go. It’s human nature to defend the true, respectful love that Star Wars and whole Disney stand for

 **@ReyloKiller** : But Reylo is canon. If it’s against what Disney stands for, then why did Disney do Beauty and the Beast? Twice? And even explicitly call it ‘tale as old as time’ in it? Enemies to lovers is a cinematic trope. And it’s been in human nature to be drawn to it ever since the ancient Greeks came up with Hades abducting Persephone to the underworld, probably even earlier, before anything was written. It’s ART ffs

Freya was pleased with her own argumentation, borrowing the same points that she had seen Reylos use three decades ago in Tumblr’s archives.

 **@FreyaOfLight** : Art and how it’s interpreted affects what we consider ok irl

 **@ReyloKiller** : You think now that people become rapists because of watching Star Wars? Isn’t it rather that art reflects what’s already in us collectively?

 **@FreyaOfLight** : So is that humanity to you? A flock of perverts with an abuse fetish?

 **@ReyloKiller** : Imao it’s not an abuse fetish to fantasize about being swept by a bad boy

Only after clicking the sending button did she realise how that might come across. Her face flushed red as she thought about herself just a moment ago looking at the angsty pictures of teenaged Kai and imagining herself at the same age or a little younger. Kai’s response made her wonder if there was something about the bridge that reached beyond her computer all the way to her brain.

 **@FreyaOfLight** : Is that what you do?

What could she possibly respond to that? Could there be a chance that the truth could give her a chance to get through this? Because so far, she was stuck.

She wanted nothing more than to get rid of Kai. But if she would close their bridge and try again, she would just end up back here. For sure, Kai was not going to back away from the server, and the bridging command would always choose the easiest path, which was already proven to exist between the two of them. So she decided to experiment with the truth.

 **@ReyloKiller** : Maybe sometimes

 **@ReyloKiller** : A bad boy who’s good for me

 **@FreyaOfLight** : What do you mean with good?

 **@ReyloKiller** : Why do you care?

 **@FreyaOfLight** : Because you’re my only way to @EOT, and you know I’m yours

Freya bit the inside of her lip. She hated how right Kai was.

 **@ReyloKiller** : I’m not going to help you block a single account just because they ship a pairing you don’t like

 **@FreyaOfLight** : We’ll see

 _Exactly, we’ll see_ , Freya thought to herself. With a slightly far-fetched but vaguely potential idea in mind, she opened Kai’s email.


	4. Reylos reborn

Freya found a few emails from Kai’s parents, the last one from ten years back, telling that they had tried to call, inquiring where he was and if he needed anything, and asking him to come to visit home some time, at least for Christmas. There was no reply from him. Now, Freya crafted her own:

From: kai.lorentz@gmail.com  
To: hans.lorentz@gmail.com, layla.lorentz@gmail.com  
Subject: Christmas

Dear Mom and Dad,

I know it's been a very long while. I have no idea where to even begin to explain that I’m really sorry for ignoring you and even turning against you like this. I’m being torn apart. I want to be free but I’m afraid it’s too late. In the case it’s not, in the case you still happen to care, even though you’d have all the reasons not to, I was thinking I could come to visit you this Christmas.

Let me know,

Kai

Content with her wording and seeing that there were no more DMs from Kai, she sent the email, left the computer open and went to sleep. Kai might use all the rest of the night searching through her computer, but she did not care anymore, not as much as about her mission.

* * *

In the morning, Freya used her phone to text their workplace chat that she would be working from home today. Then she sat back down by the computer, where a reply was waiting in Kai’s inbox:

From: hans.lorentz@gmail.com  
To: kai.lorentz@gmail.com  
Subject: Christmas

Dearest Kai,

Of course it’s not too late. How could it ever be? We’d love to see you this Christmas. And we’ve already forgiven everything. We’ve always been certain about the good in you.

Take care,

Dad and Mom

Freya wished Kai good morning with a screenshot.

 **@FreyaOfLight** : That’s not possible they’d actually write that

 **@ReyloKiller** : Yet they’ve done it. You see, that’s what they really think. It’s not too late

 **@FreyaOfLight** : It is. You don’t know what I’ve done

 **@ReyloKiller** : I’ve seen your posts, both public and DMs. And the more I read the more certain I got: it’s @EOT who’s been the voice in your head, making you write all that. We need to bridge to that account and take it down. Then you’ll be free. And the other Antis will be free, too

A long silence followed. Clearly, for once, he was taking her seriously enough to at least consider without immediately getting defensive. But what was it that was still holding him back?

 **@ReyloKiller** : Kai?

 **@ReyloKiller** : Have you ever considered the possibility that Reylo would refer to Rey and Solo instead of Rey and Kylo?

 **@FreyaOfLight** : Is _that_ what it means?

 **@ReyloKiller** : Sure art can be interpreted in various ways, but to me it looks like that’s how most of the Reylos always wanted it to go: Kylo Ren is first redeemed to Ben Solo and only then Rey goes for it

 **@FreyaOfLight** : What’s it with the misquoted screenshots from TFA and TLJ then? And the speculations about ForceTime dates between TLJ and TROS? And the fanart where they fuck even though he’s still clearly Kylo Ren?

 **@ReyloKiller** : It’s all just for fun! Most of the Reylos never said that they’d want those things to really happen in the movies, at least not seriously. It was always @EOT who made you see it in another way

A long silence again. Then:

 **@FreyaOfLight** : Shit

 **@ReyloKiller** : My thoughts exactly. Ready to end this?

 **@FreyaOfLight** : Ready af

They both typed in a new bridging command, aiming for the shielded account and plunged. Freya’s screen blinked again wildly. When it steadied a little, she could recognise that she was back to her own desktop. She cursed between her teeth.

Then the ferocious humming started. The fans inside her computer accelerated to full speed to cool down the machine. But they could not stop it from heating. And when Freya touched the metal casing, she got a painful electric shock.

Her screen still looked shaky, blinking off every once in a while. But on it, she saw how a Tumblr DM window opened by itself and messages started dropping in. No request, just pushing through to her screen.

 **@EOT** : Welcome home

 **@EOT** : Long have I waited for the next leader of the Antis to rise

Keeping her hands out of the metal casing, Freya tapped her fingertips carefully on the hot plastic keys to reply.

 **@FreyaOfLight** : I haven’t come to lead the Antis. I’ve come to set them free from you

@EOT sent a GIF of Emperor Palpatine laughing. Freya decided to ignore it and open a window for another chat.

 **@FreyaOfLight** : You there?

 **@ReyloKiller** : Always

 **@FreyaOfLight** : Found anything?

 **@ReyloKiller** is typing…

He did not have time to finish before @EOT appeared in their chat.

 **@EOT** : Those who stand together are blocked together

Freya’s screen went black. She slammed a fist on her table in frustration. They had already been so close! And this was how it ended. It would probably take days to fix her computer after the damage from all the overheating and short-circuiting. And still, @EOT was somewhere out there.

Just as Freya buried her head in her hands in desperation, a little light appeared on her screen. It came from a Tumblr chat window that had somehow made its way through, even though the computer was obviously trashed. Then one by one, messages started popping in the chat. She recognized some of the usernames from browsing the archive. They were all Reylos of the past:

 **@ReyloKenobi** : These are your final steps. Rise, and take them

 **@ReyloTrash** : Bring back the balance to the Internet

 **@Heylo-Reylo** : You're not alone

 **@GalacticIdiots** : Alone never have you been

 **@Emo-Reylo** : Rise!

 **@SpaceSoulmates** : Every Reylo who ever lived, lives in you

 **@ReyloAlliance** : We stand behind you

 **@LucaInTheSky** : In the heart of the Reylo lies her strength

Freya bit her teeth together and punched the table with her fist one more time. She stood up, picked up a pair of thick mittens and used those to grab the sizzling computer and shake it. When she put it down, the command window had appeared next to the chat.

She could not reach properly into @EOT’s discs or clouds. She could barely reach the programs he had open. But that could be enough. From his command window, she copied the line of code that he had just used against her and Kai – an extract of Code 66 itself. @EOT noticed her move and forced their DM window back on her suffering screen.

 **@EOT** : Let your blocking be the final wave that sinks the Reylo ship.

He tried to force everything else but his own words out of Freya’s screen, but she stood her ground.

 **@EOT** : You’re nothing! A hacker girl is no match for the power in me. I am all the Antis!

 **@FreyaOfLight** : And I

She pasted the line of code in her command window.

 **@FreyaOfLight** : am all the Reylos

She pressed enter, and @EOT's picture and name in their chat window blinked and faded away. Freya's own screen turned blank.

Freya stared at the dead screen, filled with a swarm of emotions. She was content and happy, just like always after a successful hack, which brought up some kind of primal joy of hunting. But she could not help thinking about the bitter fact that everything had happened on Tumblr’s servers, and still even her own computer had suffered so much damage. That meant that there were hardly any chances that Tumblr’s archives would have made it. The loss of so much beautiful content from the world forever filled her heart with grief. And she was worried about what had happened to Kai.

Right then, one more single chat window pushed itself on her blank screen.

 **@ReyloKiller** : Wanna meet irl some time?

 **@FreyaOfLight** : Only if you destroy that account

 **@ReyloKiller** : Deal

Those words stayed stuck on the screen for the rest of the day, as Freya tinkered her computer back to shape. When she was finally ready and opened Tumblr again, she was content to not find @ReyloKiller anymore. In her inbox, she could still see the DMs from Reylos of the past, and a new DM request from @BenSoloLives. After she approved it, she got the first message within a minute.

 **@BenSoloLives** : Next Sat? 18 at Tempelhofer Feld?

 **@FreyaOfLight** : Deal

Freya’s own blog waited for her as passive as always. She mostly used Tumblr only for messaging with her friends and exploring others’ blogs. Her own public posts could be counted with fingers. But now, she felt like she owed something to honour the Reylos who had given their accounts for the ship they loved.

She skimmed The Last Jedi to one of her favourite shots of Rey and Kylo in the elevator. She posted a section with text:

_See how her gaze drops to his lips, only seconds after she’s called him by his real name for the first time  
#Reylo #StarWars #TheLastJedi #ElevatorScene _

Within a few minutes, @LucaInTheSky had liked and reblogged her post, then @FN-2187, then @RoseyPosey. During the following hours, occasional other likes and rebloggings dropped in, along with shy comments revealing how others loved that shot, too. Encouraged by them, Freya skimmed the movie further.

Convinced that she had seen a fleeting moment when Rey grabbed Kylo’s thigh during the throne room fight, she played the scene in slow motion and found out that she had been right. She isolated the perfect section and posted it with text:

_Omg, check out that THIGH GRAB!  
#Reylo #StarWars #TheLastJedi #ThighGrab _

For this one, comments started dropping faster, including several versions of:

_Oh, I never noticed that! I’ll never watch that scene with the same eyes again_

Even @PhoeDammit commented:

_Really? In that case, I'll have to consider shipping..._

Throughout the rest of the day, she saw others starting to post edits of the same scenes. Some made her laugh, some made her sigh in deep awe. Then came more GIFs and edits of different scenes, and little by little, both hand-crafted and digital fanart as well as links to fanfiction. During the following days, Freya was busy posting more and responding to a stream of friendly DM requests.

There was no questioning it: a buzzing Reylo fandom had been reborn.


	5. Epilogue

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Here goes a bit longer update after being so quiet while preparing for holidays. I don’t want to leave you all alone after so many of you have just started following me during the past weeks. All your comments have really been the best Christmas gifts I could wish for.

I’m posting from my bf’s family’s place. Omg, I thought first, as we’re quite fresh, only a couple of months together. But he needed a cushion for his parents and I… well… I don’t have a family of my own, so we figured it was a match of interests.

For Christmas dinner, we decided to cosplay the Solo family with Rey. Or I decided, and it wasn’t difficult to talk his parents over. And he was easy to trick in because he almost always wears a Ben Solo sweater anyways and looks just like him.

Then it just took a bunch of bargaining to get his permission to share the picture with you. Finally, here it is, along with another one they took as the same family, 30 yrs ago in TROS premiere, when he was still a toddler. Tell me, is that an overload of cuteness or what?

I did some math. He’s born exactly 9 months after TLJ premiere. Can you believe it? That’s a hardcore Reylo family. And they’re so fun! Imagine a Christmas dinner with a Star Wars reference every few minutes.

Now I’ve maybe rambled too much for the interests of identity protection. But let me tell you, we’ve hacked open the freaking servers of Tumblr. If you go after us based on any of this, we’ll slice your bank account, medical records and browsing history in your sleep.

I think my next post will come out in 2050. This year went so fast! Especially towards the end. Can’t even guess what the next one will bring. Looks like the world is only getting crazier. But when I’m overwhelmed, I think about the one thing that has stayed constant for three decades already: Reylo is canon.

Love,

FreyaOfLight


End file.
